The OSI Turkmenistan News Brief features a digest of the week's news from a spectrum of sources, with an analysis of recent developments. It is distributed free of charge every Friday in English and Russian. Subscribe or unsubscribe to the Turkmenistan News Brief using the email entry box located on the left of this page.

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Analysis

Construction broke ground this week in Kazakhstan slated to go online in 2010 to export Turkmenistan's gas to China via Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan. The ambitious 7,000 kilometer line, estimated at U.S. $26 million, is becoming a fact on the ground compelling all countries involved to resolve their differences. Ultimately, China expects to receive 30 billion cubic meters a year from Turkmenistan. Turkmenistan also declared the tripartite project with Russia and Kazakhstan to build the Caspian pipeline as its top priority, announcing that preliminary exploration and design engineering had been conducted without waiting for finalization of the agreement. Kazakhstan also indicated its willingness to purchase Turkmen gas, and the Turkmen president ordered the acceleration of Turkmenistan's section of a regional rail through Kazakhstan to Iran.

Meanwhile, Turkmenistan continues to hold out the prospect of alternative routes and partners. President Berdymukhamedov traveled to Bucharest on July 15-16 to meet with President Traian Basescu to sign a bilateral agreement and establish an intergovernmental economic commission. Although the Romanian press said the leaders discussed the Nabucco pipeline, the Turkmen leader made no public comment on the matter. An intergovernmental Turkmen-Afghani trade commission convened this week in Ashgabat, and Turkmenistan agreed to explore and develop Afghanistan's oil and gas deposits in regions bordering on Turkmenistan, along with construction of a rail line and expanded power supply lines.

The continued harassment of journalists underscored the need for wariness even when Turkmenistan appears to be making human rights concessions under international pressure. Last week, Sazak Durdymuradov, contributing reporter for the Turkmen Service of the U.S.-funded Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) was released from psychiatric detention after two weeks, but his colleagues were subsequently unable to reach him and his phone was cut off. Security police warned him that he should cease his "slander" of Turkmenistan in his broadcasts. Security police are on a campaign to track journalists throughout Turkmenistan, scrutinizing those who worked for now-closed ethnic newspapers or who had ties abroad. The Turkmen Initiative for Human Rights (TIHR), reported that President Berdymukhamedov evidently ordered security agents to put a stop to negative coverage of Turkmenistan by attacking the source, via a crackdown on Internet reporters.

Despite such harassment, independent reporting continues to trickle out of Turkmenistan, belying the positive picture painted of the new leadership's reforms. NBCentral Asia has interviewed doctors who say Turkmenistan's drug problem is growing, and demonstrative actions like the government's public destruction of narcotics stockpiles seized are not curbing the number of addicts. Drug clinics are overcrowded and the official number of addicts registered -- 32,000 -- is believed to be much larger.

In another example of seeming human rights progress that disguises much more than meets the eye, the demolition of a prison in Turkmenbashi last month in fact merely displaced a problem of severe overcrowding to other facilities. As many as1,920 convicts, many convicted of serious offenses, had been held in a facility intended for 700, the Turkmen Initiative for Human Rights (TIHR) reports. New prisons need to be built to address chronic problems of sanitation and health.

The TIHR also reports that a typhoid epidemic is spreading in the eastern Turkmen province of Lebap due to contaminated drinking water. Water pipes that cracked during last winter's unseasonable frosts have still not been repaired and are contributing to the spread of bacteria. Authorities have placed the region under quarantine and are preventing travel from the area. The official media remains silent about the problem.

At a government meeting this week, President Berdymukhamedov appeared to express great concern about the need to invest in the public infrastructure to meet social needs. Yet his remarks focused on showcase projects in the capital meant to impress foreigners, such as plans for a Turkmen Olympic Village for international sports competitions, the Ashgabat Cinema, and the Institute for Oil and Gas. He stressed the need to make the Ruhnama University, which keeps alive past dictator Saparmurat Niyazov's cultic book of sayings, the Ruhnama, a "major international research and educational center" to be outfitted with computers. The president called attention to the need to achieve international standards in construction, but did not address the pressing issues that affect most of Turkmenistan's citizens, such as health clinics, water mains and prisons, issues which are the focus of the independent coverage of Turkmenistan - whose reporters take tremendous risks raising awareness of them.

The president continues to practice reform not by delegating and empowering reformers, but through public humiliation of officials who are threatened with the prospect of abrupt dismissal. Educational officials were reprimanded publicly for apparently mismanaging school applications and the head of the national sports institute was fired for unspecified "shortcomings." The head of the state fisheries was also chided for failure to supply enough fish to the population at a government meeting where food security was discussed.

Digest

Many of the primary news and information sources that inform the above analysis are noted (with weblinks) in Part 2 of the Turkmenistan News Brief, available for download below. This week's digest includes the following:

1.     International Relations        
a.  President Berdymukhamedov Visits Romania
b. Turkmenistan to Launch Caspian Gas Pipeline in 2010
c. Ground Broken on Tripartite Caspian Pipeline Construction
d. Turkmenistan to Assist in Afghanistan's Hydrocarbon Exploration, Energy Supply
e. Baku to Host Azerbaijan-Turkmenistan Oil and Gas Conference September 9-11
f.  OSCE Seminar in Ashgabat on Judicial Independence

2.    Domestic Developments                                                
a.   RFE/RL Unable to Contact Contributor After Release from Detention
b. Turkmen Security Police Tracking Journalists
c.  Turkmenistan Should Admit Scale of Growing Drug Problem: Analysts
d. Prison Demolition Masks Greater Overcrowding Problem in Turkmen Prisons
e. Typhoid Epidemic Spreading in Turkmenistan:  Rights Group
f. President Orders Improved Construction Standards
g. Turkmen Education Officials Reprimanded; Sports Official Fired
h. Fisheries Official Reprimanded for Poor Supply of Fish in Turkmenistan

3.  Economic News
a. Kazakhstan to Purchase Turkmen Gas